It’s been several months since I last did a “wonder” dump in this space, so batten down the hatches.
I wonder … if we’ll ever again see gas sold in California for under four dollars a gallon? I laugh (because I don’t want to sob) when I hear newscasters now cheerfully asking “How low will gas go?” simply because we happen to be paying $4.50 instead of the $4.67. Oooh, break out the champagne and brie wedges. We’re doing something (many things) wrong in this state when even Hawaii pays less per gallon than we do. Also, I’m getting tired of hearing my son in Montana brag about paying over a dollar less than we do.
I wonder … how a husband and wife can both serve in active duty overseas when they have children together? I saw a news story this week that was meant to be heartwarming. A mom unexpectedly returned home from her tour of duty in Afghanistan to surprise her young daughter in the girl’s grade school classroom. And yes, the dad is serving in harm’s way as well. It was an emotional moment alright. I was furious. As a society we should be ashamed that this is even a possibility for military parents.
I wonder … if it would be creepy if I hung out at CV’s new Bark Park without a dog of my own? Sure do miss my puppies.
I wonder … is it just me, or has there been a huge increase recently in the number of jokes about seniors? When I was a kid, the rage was elephant jokes. You could buy books filled with elephant jokes. Example: Q: Why do elephants paint their toenails red? A: So they can hide in cherry trees! (I didn’t say they were funny.) After the pachyderm punch lines came an onslaught of Polish jokes (which may actually have ushered in the age of political correctness.) Then came the infamous “...that’s what she said!!” jokes. Now, it seems as though every other joke I get via forwarded email features a senior getting his/her revenge on some unsuspecting, arrogant twit of a younger person. Must be because so many of my boomer brethren are starting to enter their golden years and are giving notice that they aren’t going away quietly.
I wonder … if we’ll ever break any records in Southern California for cold or rainy weather. As evidenced (again) by our ongoing endless summer, we’re great at breaking decades-old records for heat, lack of humidity, days-without-measurable rain, etc. But record rainfall or cold? Not a chance. It’s all I can do not to flame Facebook friends who are now posting comments about breaking out their flannel shirts and sitting by the fire at night drinking hot chocolate. Disgusting.
I wonder … how much work time is lost on any given day because of smart phones? The next time you drive by a work crew of any kind – whether it’s Cal Trans, DWP, private contractors or whatever – look for at least two or more of the crew to be riveted to their phone and oblivious to the actual work happening nearby. I’ve even noticed it in the grocery store – with employees stopping what they’re doing to read or answer a text message or check the Facebook wall. Where are their supervisors? Probably enjoying quality time with a their own phones.
I wonder … if anyone else gets a giggle out of words like “cummerbund,” “leotard,” “tchotchkey,” “ gobbledygook” “kerfuffle” “staphylococcus,” “namby pamby” “bunghole” or “hootenanny” like I do? Dare you to say ‘em without smiling.
I wonder … how I’ve managed to let the most important election in generations approach without yet writing about it here? For those out there with poised pens (caustic keyboards?) just waiting to blast me with their insight, wisdom and tolerance, fear not. There’s always next week.
I’ll see you ‘round town.
Welcome to my kennel of pet peeves. Please don’t make any sudden moves, and don’t put your hands into the cages. These puppies have been known to bite.
Pet Peeve #1: Drivers in the carpool lane lane who drive SLOWER than the traffic in all the other lanes. Okay, so you have two or more people in your car and technically qualify to be in the HOV lane. Big whoop. Isn’t the whole idea of driving in that lane to pass other cars?
Pet Peeve #2: Charter Communications. ‘Nuff said.
Pet Peeve #3: The Department of Motor Vehicles. Ditto.
Pet Peeve #4: Typing double spaces after a period. I don’t care if you were taught to type two spaces after a period by an English professor, typing teacher or your BFF, please stop. It’s wrong. Period.
Pet Peeve #5: Our petulant California legislators who feel perfectly fine about spending $8 billion (that’s 8,000,000,000 dollars, kids!) just to merely BEGIN building a high-speed rail from Modesto to Stockton, yes, in the middle of farm country. These lame legislators are the same ones threatening to cut millions from public education if California voters don’t approve even higher taxes in the upcoming election. Their foolish spending on high-speed rail is a classic example of why we shouldn’t give them the authority or ability to spend another ding dang dime.
Pet Peeve #6: CHP and other law enforcement personnel in patrol cars who aren’t rolling Code 3 (lights and sirens) but nevertheless speed at full throttle on surface streets, blow through stop signs while barely slowing down, make turns without signaling and worse. What are we supposed to do when those who enforce the law think they’re above it?
Pet Peeve #7: Charter Communications. I realize this is a repeat of #2, but I’m really hacked off at Charter. I missed two-thirds of this summer’s Tour de France and at least half of NBC’s Summer Olympic coverage because I saw more of Charter’s maddening message “This channel Is currently not available. Please try again later,” than I did event coverage. Why do I keep paying these chuckleheads every month? The next statement I receive, I’d like to send back with a note saying, “This payment is currently not available. Please bill again later.” Then when they call to ask where my check is, I’ll transfer them to a call center in India.
Pet Peeve #8: L.A. broadcasters who locate anything that happens in our Foothills as being in “Glendale.” Yah, I know that the part of La Crescenta from Pennsylvania east to Lowell Avenue is technically in the City of Glendale – at least as far as police, fire, taxes, water and power are concerned. But in all the years I’ve lived here, I have never heard anyone who lives in this area say that they live in Glendale. They live in Montrose or La Crescenta. Now, back to you in the studio, Colleen.
Pet Peeve #9: The profuse amounts of plastic shrink wrap and super-sticky tape used to hermetically seal new CD jewel cases. (For readers under 40, a “CD” is a disc with a non-editable playlist of songs recorded on it for use in a stereo system … oh, never mind.) Opening a new CD case to the disc inside requires the simultaneous use of a carving knife, blowtorch, a vice, c-clamps and an oyster shucking knife. Hey record industry, you’re not packaging the cure to cancer. It’s only music.
Pet Peeve #10: One last time for good measure; Charter Communications.
Please know that the above Peeves are all available for adoption should you feel so inclined. I won’t miss them and am, quite frankly, tired of feeding them. The little critters have all had their shots but have not been fixed – they could very well multiply without warning.
And yes. I do feel better now. I’ll see you ‘round town.
When we moved into our house, the property came with an aging wooden fence along one side of the backyard. It was dry, splintered and cracked, with missing pieces here and there, knotholes had become portholes, and the entire fence was in general need of serious renovation or replacement.
Thirty-some-odd years, three different homeowners on the other side of the fence, five dogs of my own, at least another six dogs of the various neighbors, countless windstorms, a house fire and several earthquakes later, that same fence still stood between our yard and the neighbor’s. Over the years I had patched it with quickly installed 2X10s, plywood pieces, wire mesh and whatever else I could find as my dogs or the neighbor’s dogs chewed and scratched and tugged and dug and gnawed their way to “freedom” from one yard to another.
Our current neighbors have two very bored, very curious dogs who live night and day alongside this fence. They’ve had to use a veritable junkyard of debris to try to keep their animals in the yard, including old barbecue grills, patio furniture, siding, bricks, rocks, dirt, plastic panels, and other domestic detritus – all of which we could see through the fence.
This past weekend, the fence came down. Finally. My wife and I tore down the old fence and rebuilt it with brand new wood, galvanized posts, a gazillion deck screws and buckets of sweat.
Since our own manual laborers (aka: kids) are all either married or away at college, we hired the young son of a friend to help us with the project all day Saturday. He had never been exposed to fun “guy things” like power tools, post hole diggers, quick dry cement, sledge hammers, circular saws, pry bars, reciprocal saws – you know, cool tools that make loud noises and big messes. With each new tool I handed him, his eyes lit up. Maybe not like I was giving him an Xbox controller and a beta-version of Halo, but it was obvious that his guy genes were on high alert. After he became comfortable using each new tool, he would say, “Now when I watch the DIY Channel, I can say, ‘I’ve done that!’”
At the end of our long, dirty day on Saturday, I asked him how it felt to have learned how to build a fence. He leaned on a shovel handle and with tired eyes looked at the nearly completed fruits of our mutual labor. Then he smiled and said, “Well, now I can cross that off my bucket list.”
On Sunday, my wife (who can handle a drill motor with the best of ‘em) and I finished the fence, cleaned up the debris and collapsed in a heap. Every muscle, every tendon, every joint in our bodies was sore and tired to the point of immobility. We had aches in places I didn’t know were places. Even my hair hurt.
Several days, many more hot showers and a half bottle of Advil later, it’s satisfying to now be able to stand back and look at our job well done. It’s so rewarding to see something strong and functional that wasn’t there only a week ago and that – barring unforeseen natural disasters or a stampeding herd of rogue elephants – is likely to be standing for many, many years.
Every morning this week so far, I’ve walked out into our backyard with my cup of coffee, just to have another look at the new fence. However, as I sip my dark roast and admire our handiwork, I try really hard not to look on the other side of the yard where another 100-foot-plus section of old fence still stands (more or less) and calls to me to rebuild it. Or more accurately, it calls to my wife and she interprets. Sigh.
Owning a home means never having to say, “what should we do this weekend?”
I’ll see you ‘round town.
Like many parents, some of our favorite books to read to our young children were in the Beginner Books collection. One title in particular, “Go Dog, Go” by P.D. Eastman, was high on the repeat reading list for our kids’ bedtimes. My wife, being an enthralling storyteller (I’ve always thought she should narrate children’s books for a profession!) would read this silly story first published in 1961 night after night after night, delighting our kids with the simple, playful dialogue spoken by cartoon canines while driving around in colorful cars, “Do you like my hat?” “I do not like your hat!” “Alright then, good bye!” “Good bye!”
This classic children’s book came to mind last week as my wife and I were sitting at a table outside the new Starbucks in the nearby town of Montrose. We sat and sipped and watched the parade of people and pooches go by on an early mid-week evening. After a while, I began to notice how many of the cars passing by on Honolulu Avenue had a dog’s face hanging out of the passenger window. Big dogs, little dogs, dogs with floppy ears and dogs with pointy ears. If you want to see a picture of pure happiness, watch a dog with its head poking out a moving car’s open window. Oh, I know – it’s not supposed to be good for a dog’s eyes, or ears, or whatever to have all that air and particulates and whatnot hitting its exposed face. To which I can only say, bark me.
If dogs didn’t absolutely love the experience, it wouldn’t be so dang difficult to drag them back inside your car only to have them go right back to sticking their heads through the window as soon as you let go. A dog’s life is far too short to deny them a simple, joyful experience like that. I mean, wouldn’t YOU do the same thing if it wasn’t for all the stares you’d get as you drove past with your tongue hanging out? Trust me, people stare.
If my wife and I have dogs on our minds more than usual lately, it’s probably because we’ve been without at least one dog in our household for over three months now. That’s the longest period we’ve ever been sans-pooch. Needless to say, our dog-radar is on maximum sensitivity these days.
And so, while enjoying our caffeine-laden beverages the other night, we couldn’t help but notice the plethora of puppies on parade in cars, walking past on leashes, sitting contentedly while their owners enjoy coffee, being carried under arms, even pushed down the sidewalk in their very own strollers. (Okay, that’s a bit too nutty even for this dog nut.) One might even say that Montrose is a Mecca for mutts – if one is, well, me. Walking through town on any given day, you’ll see several stores with a shiny, stainless steel bowl filled with cold water and sitting on the sidewalk just outside the door. Besides being a kind gesture to the many dogs who frequent the shopping park, it’s a smart outreach to the pet owners walking by.
My wife and I have witnessed several instances where a dog owner will be enjoying dinner outside one of many Montrose restaurants with sidewalk seating, and their four-legged child will be sitting right at their side as they power through a burrito at Joselito’s, a slab of ribs at Zeke’s, or roasted chicken at Black Cow. Being in such close proximity, I’m sure more than a few hungry hounds have been the beneficiaries of clandestine handouts of people food. Once this past summer we even saw a couple enjoying an al fresco dinner at Star Café who not only brought their small dog along for the evening, they had planned ahead to also bring a soft, cushiony pad on which their furry dinner guest was lounging with them at the table.
I could swear I even heard the lucky dog ask the waiter for a refill on its iced tea. Go dog, go! I’ll see you ‘round town.
